Homira Nassery followed with a case study of the village phone project in Afghanistan. This one stood in quite dramatic contrast to the Nigerian village phone project. Review the presentation to get a sense of ground realities as well as the extreme conditions that the in-country staff had to face. The geopolitical and social conditions were harsh as well as risky, leading to the project’s failure.

This was followed by Maria Del Carmen who presented from Dominican Republic using the Bank’s video conferencing network. She talked about Tortas Peru, a cake making business with a very cool twist. Tortas website takes online orders from Peruvians living abroad. A network of moms makes and delivers the cake. The business model is similar to 1.800.flowers.com but with a social component – it is run for and by women who want to work from home to generate an income for their families. The outcome of the story is not happy though. Tortas Peru is not operational now because they could not combat online credit card fraud, which ended up being about 30% of their transactions! They are currently looking for affordable transaction service provider and working capital. The presentation containing the details behind Tortas Peru is online.

Barbara Waugh from Hewlett Packard described how the emerging markets initiative in HP started as a feel-good initiative, but has grown because it makes good business sense. She pointed out how China and India are aggressively investing in women’s education in ICT, South Korea provides a great example for advancement of women, and Rwanda is taking a systematic approach to improve education.

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